Christian atheism

[struggle4progress]

I want to ask whether a Christian atheism is possible. This idea perhaps originates with the Marxist atheist Ernst Bloch, who once cheerily subtitled a book "Only a Christian can be a good atheist -- only an atheist can be a good Christian."

There are reasons to be interested in this question.

Scientific materialism has been quite successful as a tool for analyzing and manipulating the world; the underlying natural philosophy has banished the "supernatural" and the "miraculous" to an intellectual limbo from which no escape seems possible. Meanwhile, careful historical and cultural analysis (beginning with Marx) has clearly identified the use of religious institutions and ideologies as instruments of oppression, used to mystify objective relationships, so that the oppressed misunderstand real conditions and are therefore unable to struggle against their own exploitation. And psychological critiques (from the time of Freud) have further exposed the role of automatic and unconscious mechanisms in the development of religious myths.

Such criticisms deserve to be taken seriously. But after one takes such criticisms seriously, can anything remain? Is it possible to believe (say) "Miracles occur constantly" without having any intellectual commitment to supernatural ideas? Can a person be a mystic while simultaneously accepting only a scientific and materialistic philosophy? Does eliminating of intellectual belief in "G-d" necessarily strip all meaning from theological discussions? Could (for example) a traditional Christian notion like the Resurrection survive a realization that there is no historical Jesus?

I ask these questions with a focus on Christianity, primarily because of my own cultural background; presumably, similar questions could be asked in other cultural contexts -- but such a broadening may tend to produce vague and ill-defined queries and answers ...

[VPStoltz]

1. Excellent questions.

Personally, I'm not sure I believe in god as GOD and I almost certainly do not believe Christ was god. However, I believe very strongly in Christ's message as it relates to humanity. In a sense, I guess I am a Christian but not necessarily believe in the Christian manifestation of god.

[darkmaestro019]

2. Hmmmm......I'm neither a Christian nor an atheist.....

So perhaps I should ferme my bouche, lol, but I would say that would be a person who admires certain aspects of Christian philosophy and uses them as guiding principles without buying into the pouff-tada-magick parts. A little like the Jefferson Bible's idea, of a non-mystical Jesus as a thinker and teacher.

:hide:

[Erika]

3. How about agnostics

Who knows if there is a God? Why is that important?

A belief in God does not mean a better person than the average. I have been bitterly disappointed by religious people who claim a belief in God, but will stab you in the back, and send your kids off to a war with a country who never was a threat.

Religious zealots are bigots and full of hatred. Falwell hates gays and teletubbies, Robertson hates anyone he feels like at any given moment. Both of them want to blame disasters on the UnGodly. Their message is hate and fear. But they live the lives of the rich elite.

We have the Bakkers, the Swaggerts, and all the rest of the religious nuts. We have the Catholics who refuse to give communion to those who believe in women's rights. Even if the priest giving communion is a pedophile.

Christ's teachings are love and forgiveness and the Golden Rule. Our administration acts 100% opposite.

Give me an atheist who believes in caring for each other as a human characteristic, rather than a religious zealot any day of the week.

[CJCRANE]

4. Most of Europe

I would say is in a form of Christian Agnosticism, whereby the culture and principles remain but the belief isn't very strong.

Also note that the Founding Fathers of America were mostly Deists, who were quite keen on the universal principles of religion, but not so keen on the fables and mythology part.

[Erika]

5. The Founding Fathers knew they could control thru religion

and they did so. They had a goal and chose the measures to achieve that goal. They wished to be the new elitists in the new world, the landowners and the slave owners. They manipulated the populace 100% to achieve that goal. Religion was a tool they used.

I see no real Christianity in their usage of the tool of religion at all.

[Goblinmonger]

11. What?

When did the Founding Fathers manipulate people with religion? What founding fathers even claimed to be Christian? Jefferson and Madison felt that slavery would be gone in a decade or two and that is why it wasn't addressed in the constitution.

I have no idea what you are talking about. Please provide some semblence of support for your claims.

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

6. Very good topic struggle4progress

Maby there is a Higher Being (known by some as GOD). I personally don't beleave but I don't critize or even hate those who do. Maby Christians knows something that there not telling...but the Bible is how many years old and changed how many times over the different cultures of life?

Tired.....sometime I just don't know...

[treegiver]

7. I got your Christian Atheist right here

Here's Matthew:

22:37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy.God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind...
22:38 This is the first and great commandment...
22:39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself

No on 22:37. Yes on 22:39. There you go.

[struggle4progress]

9. Or perhaps the Matthew quote is exegetical:

What does it really mean "Love the Lord with all your heart and soul and mind"? Simple: "love your neighbor."

[treegiver]

12. Perhaps not.

Unless you live next door to God. I could see your point then.

[struggle4progress]

13. What I suggested may be a traditional view: "Whoevers says he loves G-d,

but hates his brother, is a liar, for if he does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love G-d whom he has not seen?" (1 John 4 etc)

If living next door to my neighbor is as close as I might get to G-d, maybe I should make the most of it ...

[treegiver]

14. You should make the most of it regardless.

First off, John's a nutcase.

Second, this "G-d" business is creepy: "Believe in G-d then, eh? Know whatahmean, know whatahmean, nudge nudge, know whatahmean, say no more?"

Third, how do you pronounce "G-d"? Silent "o"?

Fourth, how come when Scripture clearly says one thing, there's always been some entrepreneur ready to tell you it says something else?

Getting back to your original question, sorry, no miracles, no mysticism, no theology, no resurrection.

You wanted a Christian Atheist, I showed you one. Perhaps not the one you were looking for. Just trying to help.

"The governors of the world believe, and have always believed, that virtue can only be taught by teaching falsehood, and that any man who knew the truth would be wicked. I disbelieve this, absolutely and entirely. I believe that love of truth is the basis of all real virtue, and that virtues based upon lies can only do harm." Bertrand Russell

[struggle4progress]

15. If G-d doesn't exist, then of course the word itself is meaningless

and there's no point in worrying about its pronunciation.

But I think you're fairly addressing the original question.

[charlie]

8. Bishop Spong is close

He seems to be one of those mystics, a discoverer of the perennial philosophy, that turns up in small numbers in every religion. They usually fly under the radar, their experience being at strong variance with doctrinal dogma.

Spong's 12 Theses for the reformation of Christianity:

1. Theism, as a way of defining God, is dead. So most theological God-talk is today meaningless. A new way to speak of God must be found.
2. Since God can no longer be conceived in theistic terms, it becomes nonsensical to seek to understand Jesus as the incarnation of the theistic deity. So the Christology of the ages is bankrupt.
3. The biblical story of the perfect and finished creation from which human beings fell into sin is pre-Darwinian mythology and post-Darwinian nonsense.
4. The virgin birth, understood as literal biology, makes Christ's divinity, as traditionally understood, impossible.
5. The miracle stories of the New Testament can no longer be interpreted in a post-Newtonian world as supernatural events performed by an incarnate deity.
6. The view of the cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world is a barbarian idea based on primitive concepts of God and must be dismissed.
7. Resurrection is an action of God. Jesus was raised into the meaning of God. It therefore cannot be a physical resuscitation occurring inside human history.
8. The story of the Ascension assumed a three-tiered universe and is therefore not capable of being translated into the concepts of a post-Copernican space age.
9. There is no external, objective, revealed standard writ in scripture or on tablets of stone that will govern our ethical behavior for all time.
10. Prayer cannot be a request made to a theistic deity to act in human history in a particular way.
11. The hope for life after death must be separated forever from the behavior control mentality of reward and punishment. The Church must abandon, therefore, its reliance on guilt as a motivator of behavior.
12. All human beings bear God's image and must be respected for what each person is. Therefore, no external description of one's being, whether based on race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation, can properly be used as the basis for either rejection or discrimination.

http://www.dioceseofnewark.org/jsspong/reform.html

Here's something he had to say about the nature of God:

Yes, I am convinced that there is a realm of spirit, transcendence and otherness beyond the limits of my physical existence. I use the word God to speak of this realm. I experience the inbreaking of this realm in those moments when life is expanded, when consciousness is enhanced and when eyes are opened to view dimensions of life beyond our normal boundaries. I do not expect a supernatural being from this realm to invade my world to accomplish some miraculous purpose. I do expect human life to make this realm known in the quality of our lives, in the wastefulness of our love and in the expansion of our being. I do believe that in this mysterious realm of the divine, our love and our caring can loose energy that embraces us, makes us whole, brings healing power, and invites us to share in that which is timeless. I further believe that those of us who know this reality are responsible for acting it out so that it impacts our world and transforms it, calling us into a new awareness of the holy. Finally, this is what leads me to say that I see God in Jesus of Nazareth; and he becomes Christ and Lord for me because he penetrated this realm as no one else has done and his life made clear what God as the Source of Life, the Source of Love and the Ground of Being really is.

http://www.dioceseofnewark.org/vox31099.html

[struggle4progress]

10. Interesting. Thanks!